Chancellor of the Exchequer face questions from the Economic Affairs Committee

At 3pm on Tuesday 19 March the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee will hold its annual evidence session with the Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

The Chancellor will be joined by Dan York-Smith, Director General of Tax and Welfare at HM Treasury, and Sam Beckett, Chief Economic Adviser, Head of the Government Economic Service and Second Permanent Secretary at HM Treasury.

This evidence session, which is open to the public, will be held in Committee Room 4 of the House of Lords. It will also be streamed live and on demand on Parliament TV.

Topics the committee is likely to cover in this session include:

• Whether the major parties are being honest about the state of the public finances, and the need to raise taxes, cut spending or both.
• How sustainable the UK’s debt is and if it would be able to absorb a shock when it arises.
• Whether the fiscal rule regarding debt is fit for purpose.
• The difficulties the Government faces in cutting unprotected services.
• The dependence of the UK’s future economic growth on high levels of net migration.
• What the Government is doing to address the economic inactivity rate, which currently stands at 21.9 per cent of the working age population.
• Sir Dieter Helm’s evidence to the committee which said that the Government needed to define its net zero objective properly and admit that the costs will be a lot higher than it currently claims.

The committee’s work can be followed on its website and via Twitter.